A Classic Is a Book That Has Never Finished What It Has to Say

“A Classic is a book that has never finished what it has to say.” This quote by Italo Calvinho is one which I think captures the true essence of what ‘Classic’ literature is all about. This assignment has asked me to comment about a particular book which evokes the true essence of a ‘Classic’. It would be easy to write about works accepted in the public domain as texts which warrant being termed as ‘Classics’ like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Oliver Twist, Crime and Punishment, 1984 etc. (some of the famous works which I’ve read.) I could have easily written about Huckleberry Finn, which is one of my absolute favorites. As a young boy of 16, when I first read the book, I was spurred on by an irrepressible urge for adventure by the time I finished with it and it has certainly left a kind of a clichéd impression upon me.  But thankfully this assignment also gives me a chance to go out of that comfort zone and write about a work which one might not readily like to accept as a ‘Classic’ literature.

Here I would like to talk about the greatest gift which my brother gave me for my thirteenth birthday. “Batman: The Killing Joke” by Alan Moore. Ever since I was a child, comic books, or rather graphic novels as the more dignified people like to call them, has been a source of long hours of unmistakable wonder, pleasure, intrigue and to sum it all up pure unadulterated happiness. At that age, the conventional ‘Classics’ felt too long and drab for my liking. I would rather read the picturesque, action packed comic books which could hold my limited attention span as a child. Batman, as it is for many, was my favorite ‘superhero’ as a child. The apparent lack of any superhuman abilities is what attracted me to this iconic character, The World’s Greatest Detective, created by Bob Kane.

Now coming back to The Killing Joke. I read this iconic piece of work after I received the book from my brother, who is an equally big fan of all kinds of comics, at the age of 13. The first time I read it, I was motivated just by the sheer love for Batman and the pulsating storyline. At that point of time I was unable to really grasp the true essence or the underlying messages. The ending also confused me as I felt it too ambiguous. I didn’t know quite what to make of it. However as a child I did not dwell much upon it for maybe I had other child-like things to do. In fact I had forgotten all about it as the years passed by. I could recall none of the events that transpired. It was as if I had never even read it. So after my Class 12 boards when I read the work again, I started almost with a clean slate. However this time my intellectual capacities were a bit more polished than when I was a chubby 13 year old boy. Reading the comic again, I realized many things which I failed to grasp during my first attempt. I understood the complexity of the work and realized that Batman and Joker were two sides of the same coin, both having evolved from personal tragedies only to choose different paths to channelize the effects of their personal tragedies. Joker’s attempts to prove that how even a man like Commissioner James Gordon is just ‘one bad day’ away from turning insane like him and his subsequent failure to do that reposes one’s faith in society. The ending of the work is still something I can’t be sure about. After what might be the sanest moment of connection ever between Batman and the Joker, it seems as if The Caped Crusader kills the Joker in between the laughs which emanate. However I don’t want to subscribe to that idea. Personally I believe that killing the Joker would not do justice to the torture that the Commissioner suffered. Even after everything Gordon wanted him to be brought in by the book of the law, because he doesn’t want to validate Joker’s idea that everyone is only a tragedy away to being just like him. So it is needed to prove to him that the law is sound and that the Joker is after all wrong in his ideas. Thus I believe killing him would go against that basic notion.